Death in Room Five (A Chief Inspector Littlejohn Mystery) by George Bellairs

Author:George Bellairs [Bellairs, George]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Endeavour Press
Published: 2015-04-16T04:00:00+00:00

10 - Death of a Naughty Boy

Cromwell met his chief again at St. Pancras. They had time to dine together before Littlejohn caught the 22.25 plane back to Nice. Cromwell had, in the course of the day, eliminated the Moles from the case.

‘I had a word with Zurich, sir, and the police there got in touch with Lucerne. They did a good, quick job of work. It seems that the Moles arrived there from London on the night that Dawson was murdered. Since then, they’ve behaved perfectly normally. The hotel manager, who was questioned, said they’d been in for every meal, which puts quite out of the question any flying visit to Cannes…’

‘I wanted it checking, Cromwell, just in case Mole had been up to some jiggery-pokery. He’d reason to dislike Dawson, who caused trouble between him and his wife.’

Cromwell took out his large black notebook, removed the elastic band, and consulted it.

‘They seem to have checked-in at a hotel pending the arrival of the party at the Lucerne Bagatelle, where, I guess, they proposed to join them. Mrs. Mole wasn’t very well, the hotel people said, and stayed in bed late every morning. The police at Zurich checked the flights. Both of them joined the plane at London at 11.30, Swiss Airways, to Basle. Got there 2.15. They arrived at the Lucerne hotel about 5 o’clock, which means they got a train straight away from Basle to Lucerne. I think we can write them off. By the way, they’re on their way back, too. They were checked out of Basle back to London at 3.5o.’

‘They must have had enough. I don’t blame them. Pity I just missed them in Bolchester. They might have thrown a bit more light on Dawson and his affairs…’

It was half-past one in the morning when Littlejohn arrived back at Var Airport. Dorange was waiting for him on the runway, looking as fresh as paint, with a new carnation sprouting from his buttonhole. Littlejohn touched the flower and admired it.

‘My father grows them at his farm above Nice. Thousands of them there. Sometimes I wish I’d been a flower-grower, too, old man. Much happier and more profitable than police work…Your wife is waiting in the car.’

Dorange insisted on returning to Nice without discussing the case.

‘You need a good sleep first. I’ll see you in the morning.’

At ten, Dorange was waiting for Littlejohn at La Reserve and talked to him over breakfast.

‘This murder of Henri. The brutal killing of a child of thirteen is detestable at any time, but I must say I’d feel harder about it if Henri had been a nice little boy. As it is, he’s been a great trouble to his parents and, sooner or later, would have been in our hands. A big, precocious boy, always stealing and lying to his father and mother.’

‘The Curries must feel a bit put out about letting their boy, Peter, associate with him at all.’

‘I haven’t told them Henri’s character. He could be very ingratiating and had a suave sort of charm.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.